Texas wants someone at a street who can take court papers

What Texas actually requires

The Texas Secretary of State’s Registered Agents page says the Business Organizations Code requires every domestic or foreign filing entity to maintain a registered agent and a registered office in Texas. The agent is the person or organization on whom process, notice, or demand may be served. Process here means service of process, handing over court papers. The office is where that service happens, and where the Secretary of State mails correspondence.

Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 5.201 is the statute. Each filing entity and each foreign filing entity shall designate and continuously maintain in this state both a registered agent and a registered office. The agent may be a Texas resident individual who has consented, or an organization, other than the entity being represented, that is registered or authorized to do business in Texas and has consented. The agent must keep a business office at the same address as the registered office.

The registered office must be a street address where process may be personally served. A street address is a place a person can walk up to. A P.O. Box is a mailbox at the post office. The office does not have to be the company’s place of business. It may not be solely a mailbox service or a telephone answering service. If the agent is an organization, an employee must be available at that office during normal business hours to receive service; any employee may take the papers. The Registered Agent FAQs add the same rule in plain language: an officer, owner, or employee may serve, but an entity may not serve as its own registered agent. The secretary of state cannot serve as your agent either.

Related guide: Can I be my own registered agent? Texas lets an officer, owner, or employee take the job. The company itself cannot.

Related guide: What is a registered agent for an LLC? Form 401 is how the company changes that name. The job itself is taking papers at the street.

Related guide: How much does a registered agent cost? Texas does not publish a separate company price. The price on the company’s own page is the Texas price.

Related guide: How to change a registered agent on an LLC.

Related guide: What is a commercial registered agent? Hiring a company is a different seat from an officer, owner, or employee who lives in Texas.

Related guide: Service of process: what it means for an LLC If the registered agent cannot be found at the Texas street, the statute lets the server use the Secretary of State.

Related guide: The registered agent requirements: what you must meet Texas wants a consented agent at a street, not solely a mailbox service.

Related guide: What is a registered agent address? Texas wants a street where papers can be handed over in person. It may not be solely a mailbox service.

The SOS office page is slightly softer on commercial mail than the statute. It says a registered office cannot be a post office box that is part of a commercial mail or message service unless that commercial enterprise is the registered agent. We still print the statute’s mailbox-and-answering-service ban. We still do not score a mailbox store as if it were the registered-agent job.

Consent is real, and it is not an on-file commercial-agent application. Agents designated on or after January 1, 2010 must consent in a written or electronic form the Secretary of State developed, Form 401-A on the business-forms list. The SOS FAQs say the signed consent should be sent to and retained by the represented entity. It is generally not required to be filed with the secretary of state. Filing a copy is optional and costs $15; a copy submitted with the fee will be indexed if you choose to file it. Designating an agent is an affirmation that the person consented. Naming someone who did not consent can trigger the false-statement penalties in BOC §§ 4.007 and 4.008, and the non-consenting person may reject the appointment.

Texas has no annual Secretary of State report. Change the agent on Form 401 or use SOSDirect. Texas has no commercial-agent registry. The Secretary of State does not maintain a list of service companies. Failure to appoint or maintain a registered agent and registered office, the FAQs say, may result in involuntary termination of a domestic filing entity or revocation of a foreign filing entity’s registration. Someone has to be at a Texas street during business hours. The Secretary of State does not publish office clock hours. We do not print any. We will not pretend a software login satisfies the street.

Cited prices, retrieved August 30, 2026

We print what the company’s official registered-agent page said on the retrieval date. No company publishes a different Texas registered-agent price. The national price is the Texas price. The page does not publish a separate renewal price.

• Northwest Registered Agent: official page: “$125 Per Year” and the same price in year two. Five or more states is $100 a year per state. Retrieved August 30, 2026 from northwestregisteredagent.com/registered-agent and the Texas product page. First year free only if you form through them; we do not treat that bundle as the standalone price.
• Bizee: official page: free year one with formation; standalone $149/year; year two $149/year. Retrieved August 30, 2026 from bizee.com/business-management/registered-agent. We print the official $149 figure and tell you to read checkout.
• LegalZoom: official overview: “Get registered agent services for $249/year.” Product card: $249/year. Footnote: auto-renews at the purchase rate; “The renewal rate is subject to change.” Retrieved August 30, 2026 from legalzoom.com/…/registered-agent-overview.html. LegalZoom did not publish a year-two number.
• ZenBusiness: official product page: “$99 + state fees for the first year. Renews at $199/yr.” Texas pages say that renewal rate is subject to change. Retrieved August 30, 2026 from zenbusiness.com/registered-agent and zenbusiness.com/texas-registered-agent.

Who publishes a Texas street

A city is not a registered office. We print only the streets and hours the companies publish for registered-agent use. The pages we read do not publish the rest. Confirm the live name and street on SOSDirect before you file.

• Northwest. Austin, TX on the Texas product page. No street published. The page does not publish one.
• Bizee. Houston founding office and headquarters. The contact page lists 17350 State Highway 249, Suite 220, Houston, TX 77064 as headquarters. That address is contact HQ, not labeled as the Texas registered-agent office. No Austin or Dallas registered-agent street on the product pages.
• LegalZoom. Frisco as the “registered office in Texas” on their Texas registered-agent article. No street. We do not reuse virtual-mail streets as the registered office.
• ZenBusiness. 5511 Parkcrest Drive, Suite 103, Austin, TX 78731. Hours they publish: Monday–Friday, 8am–5pm CST. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Those are ZenBusiness hours, not Secretary of State hours. Texas registered agent office.

If you are your own agent, the street on the public record is often your home. If you hire an organization that is registered or authorized to do business in Texas, the agent line is that organization’s name and its registered-office street. We have not independently visited each Texas suite this week, and SOSDirect charges a statutory search fee we did not pay for a live pull.

In-state office and business hours

Texas wants a physical street and, for an organizational agent, an employee who can accept hand delivery during normal business hours. ZenBusiness is the only company of these four that publishes a Texas registered-agent street and weekday hours. Northwest names Austin. LegalZoom names Frisco. Bizee names a Houston headquarters that is not labeled as the registered-agent office. Those city and headquarters claims are company copy. Process Score has not been to those offices. The Secretary of State does not publish clock hours.

Service of process, not marketing mail

BOC § 5.206 limits the agent’s statutory duties to receiving, accepting, and forwarding process, notice, or demand, and giving the notices the law requires. We grade scan-and-forward of service of process and official notices:

• Bizee: notifications by text and email; court papers mailed via FedEx with tracking; portal upload by employees.
• Northwest: “We scan every document you receive right where you receive it—in our office.” Their free “business address” and mail-scanning extras are a different product. We do not grade those extras as a mailbox.
• LegalZoom: upload, email, and a postcard for urgent legal mail; they say they shred junk mail. Junk-mail shredding is not the job we score.
• ZenBusiness: scan and upload to a dashboard; email; overnight the original for urgent legal notices. Their own FAQ says you cannot use the agent address as your business address.

Home-address privacy

A commercial organizational agent is how most Texas owners keep a home off the agent line. The SOS still publishes whatever other addresses you put on a certificate of formation or a later filing. Privacy of the agent line is not privacy of every field on the instrument. Confirm the live line on SOSDirect.

Scorecards

What this page does not do

• It does not rank mailbox networks or virtual offices.
• It does not publish combined star ratings or a fake 4.8.
• It does not treat Form 401-A consent as an on-file commercial-agent application. Texas generally leaves that writing with the entity.
• It does not treat a company “age 18” line as Texas statute. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 5.201 does not set that age.

Choosing among being the agent yourself, asking a lawyer, or hiring a commercial agent: DIY vs lawyer vs commercial. California’s scorecard is a different statute: California scorecard. Florida files the acceptance and posts a 10–noon / 2–4 clock: Florida scorecard. Delaware bans a virtual-only agent: Delaware scorecard. New York already names the Secretary of State as the agent: New York scorecard. Nevada makes a commercial agent register at ten companies: Nevada scorecard. Wyoming bans UPS stores and virtual addresses as the registered office: Wyoming scorecard. Arizona makes the statutory-agent appointment wait on a signed acceptance: Arizona scorecard. Illinois gives you 60 days after your agent resigns, then you are not in good standing: Illinois scorecard.